


when a drowning man holds on to you

by CodenameMeretricious



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Couch Cuddles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, st petersburg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 06:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodenameMeretricious/pseuds/CodenameMeretricious
Summary: Yuuri has an anxiety attack on the ice. It's not the first, and it definitely won't be the last. But this time, Victor is there to comfort him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from this quote by Anais Nin -“Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”

Yuuri missed the onsen. The heat helped release the tension in his body, soothed the growing anxiety and tightness in his lungs. 

There was no onsen in St. Petersburg.

For most people, anxiety was a light: blinding. It was something that rode high and made people fidgety and ready to fight. For Yuuri it was heavy. It sat deep in his stomach, making his hands shake and his center of gravity drop, causing him to be thrown off balance and dragged down, the edge of it thinner than the skates on his feet. 

He felt it now, the growing dread in his stomach, the tension in his temples that signaled an oncoming attack. He’d already failed to land his quad, his feet and head seconds apart, precious seconds that caused him to be thrown off balance, tumbling onto the ice. The cold hardly shocked him anymore. His skin was red where it had met the hard chill over and over again. He could feel one of the blisters on his heel break open and bleed. His toes were rubbed raw. 

Victor was watching from across the rink. He’d been skating slow circles, one eye on Yuuri as Yakov screeched at him in Russian. Yuuri didn’t care what he was saying. 

Yuuri stayed down this time, sliding toward the side of the rink and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. The darkness was good. 

The scratch of blades on ice alerted him. He glanced up, squinting through one eye. Gold blades and the dark grey of Victor’s sweatpants appeared, a fall of silver hair moments after as blue eyes met his. 

“Yuuri?”

“I’m all right,” he whispered, curling up into himself. 

He felt Victor settle down beside him, the heavy warmth and weight of him wrapping around Yuuri’s body. Yuuri wanted to tell him it was fine, that others were watching and he didn’t want to make a scene. But he didn’t have the strength and the weight was slowly dragging through his limbs, connecting him to the ice as though fusing together. 

Victor let him slide lower, rearranging him so that Yuuri’s head rested in his lap and ran gloved fingers through his sweaty hair. The chill of the ice draped around the rest of his body, numbing his skin and sinking into his bones, dragging him further. 

Yuuri twisted his head so that his face was buried in Victor’s thigh. The soothing strokes across his hair didn’t let up, but he felt a hand reach out for his own. Victor had removed his glove, wrapping warm skin around Yuuri’s numb, glove-covered fingers. 

It was the glint of golden ring that pulled him back first. 

Yuuri moved his face to see it, chin digging into Victor’s thigh though the Russian didn’t move. Yuuri blinked, watching the gold around pale flesh.

Suddenly wanting to feel the gold ring he’d placed there all those months ago, Yuuri pulled his hand from Victor’s, using his teeth to peel off the glove of his left hand before returning it, twining his darker fingers with the fine, smooth skin of Victor’s hands. 

“Solnyshko,” Victor murmured, fingers holding Yuuri’s own tightly. 

Yuuri hummed at the pet name, feeling the tightness in his chest ease. It was always easier, with Victor there. It was embarrassing enough that he still had these attacks, but the move to a new country and a new rink hadn’t helped. He was also caught between the guilt and excitement of Victor’s return to the ice as well as the question of beating him – or losing to him - that kept Yuuri up long after Victor’s steady breathing and Maccahin’s snuffling breaths should have eased him to sleep.

Yuuri heard another set of blades skating closer but didn’t lift his gaze from their connected hands. He recognized Yakov’s voice, the Russian words falling harshly from his tongue. Was he angry? Concerned? Victor responded in Russian, his voice quiet but stern. There was a brief pause before Yakov skated away, barking something out at Mila. 

“Home?” Victor asked.

“Yes,” Yuuri replied. He didn’t want to move though, didn’t want to see the confused looks on the rest of Team Russia’s faces. He had looked up a number of Yurio’s Russian “pet names” for him, none of them particularly kind, and he didn’t feel quite up to them at the moment. 

Victor let him rest on the ice a minute or two longer before tugging at his hand and nudging him.

“Up,” Victor said. “The ice will burn you.”

Yuuri forced himself to take a breath, pushing air through the shriveled lungs in his chest. The ice had seeped through his shirt and pants, numbing the skin and setting his hips and knees to aching. Reluctantly, slowly, he allowed himself to be lifted upright, Victor somehow managing to balance them both without falling over once more. He kept his hand wrapped around Yuuri’s.

“What’s wrong with Katsudon?” Yurio’s voice met them before he did. 

Victor replied in Russian, though Yuri had spoken in English. He’d gotten into the habit whenever the three of them were around each other, though he’d often slipped into Russian before, casting dark glances at Yuuri when Victor replied in English. 

“Are you all right?” 

The quiet voice made Yuuri lift his eyes from the ice, the world taking a moment to settle into clarity before he looked at Yuri’s green eyes. He managed a soft smile, touched despite himself. 

“We’ll be fine, Yurio,” Victor said. “Work on your step sequence and listen to Yakov. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Yuri gave a curt nod but settled Yuuri with a long look before turning and skating back to the center of the ring.

Victor helped Yuuri off the ice, silently supporting him as he clipped on his skate guards. They changed quickly, both preferring to shower once safely ensconced in Victor’s apartment. Well, their apartment. 

Yuuri hardly noticed the walk back. He didn’t pay attention when Victor pushed him into a lukewarm shower, the water still stinging his ice-tinged skin. He managed to pull on a t-shirt, shuffling around his still half unpacked suitcase to find a pair of clean sweats. 

Looking around the apartment numbly, recognizing only a few things through his weariness, he sat heavily on the edge of the bed, not knowing what to do with himself while Victor took his own shower. 

Wet nose and fluff and Maccachin was resting his head in Yuuri’s lap, just like Vicchan had done. Yuuri gave a grateful sigh, letting his hand sink into the soft fur and willing the heavy tension out of his body. The acute stage had passed at the rink, but the heavy, sinking feeling of swimming forward while being pulled backward still surrounded him. 

Victor emerged, hair dripping, sometime later. He pulled on sweats before sitting down in front of Yuuri, taking a bruised foot into his lap. 

Yuuri watched, neither of them speaking, as Victor patched up the bleeding blister at the back of his heel and wrapped his two smallest toes. His ministrations were soft and tender, gently setting one foot down on the floor before picking up the other and doing the same. 

Between Maccachin and Victor, Yuuri began to feel slightly more aware of himself. 

Once he’d taken care of both of them, Victor grabbed Yuuri’s hands, pulling him to his feet and leading him to the living room. He pulled his jacket off the back of a chair, the red and white startling in the general grey and steel of the apartment. He held it out to Yuuri, wrapping the warm fabric snugly around him before nodding at the couch. 

Yuuri sighed, stretching once before curling up, back pressed to the back of the couch. Victor laid down beside him, wrapping both arms around him and entwining their legs. Yuuri had never told him, but somehow Victor knew the comfort it brought, being pressed between the firm but soft back of the couch and the warm assuredness of his fiancé. 

“Bol'shoe spasibo,” Yuuri murmured, the phrasing still feeling odd on his tongue, though he was pretty sure he’d gotten it right. Victor hadn’t bothered with a clean shirt and Yuuri pressed his hand into the warm skin of Victor’s chest.

“Ni stoit,” Victor replied, pulling Yuuri even closer. “You never have to thank me for this.”

“You didn’t sign up for anxiety attacks during practice,” Yuuri murmured, tucking his chin into his chest and closing his eyes. 

He knew they’d have to eat soon, need to refuel despite the short practice. He still wanted to get a run in later if he could. Victor hated running. He always complained and usually ended up gasping for breath and glaring at a merely winded Yuuri. Yuuri couldn’t help but smile and it seemed to crack a bit more of the heaviness clinging to him.

“I signed up for everything,” Victor said, sliding his hand from Yuuri’s shoulder to his hip. It eased the ache.

There was a sudden weight on Yuuri’s legs, Maccachin having leapt onto the couch to join them. He never appreciated being left out, which had led to a few interesting surprises when the dog had decided that whatever ‘game’ the two humans on the bed were playing was one he wanted in on. Yuuri smiled again.

“Macca, you’re still quite spry,” Victor said, giving the dog’s head a quick pat before returning his hand to Yuuri’s side. 

His fingers tapped out a pattern and Yuuri recognized it as the choreography for Yurio’s short program. He’d agreed to choreograph four pieces that season, two for himself and two short programs for Yuri and Yuuri. 

“He can make that a quad,” Yuuri said, recognizing the part where Victor seemed to be hesitating. He opened his eyes, caught the glance of Victor’s blue gaze.

“Hmmm, you’re right. Can’t let him get lazy.” There was a steady four-beat tap. 

They lapsed into silence then, Victor occasionally humming to himself. The sound reverberated through Yuuri’s hand where he still held it, pressed against Victor’s chest. 

There would be more attacks, he was sure. More stress, more worry, more uncertainty that they were each making the right decisions. He’d had them before and he would have them again, but he sighed now, safe and secure with Victor and Maccachin in the bright St. Petersburg apartment he was slowly learning to call his own. 

Yuuri missed the onsen. 

But, he thought, being surrounded by things he loved, wrapped up in his Olympic-medal-winning lover’s jacket, drooled on by their dog, and knowing he didn’t have to hide, didn’t have to worry about keeping it together rather than letting the attack run its course…that, he decided, would quite make up for it.


End file.
